Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1896 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

While there is some uncertainty as to the Dumber of warships which Japan may contract for in this country, it Is denied that these will be of the Charleston cruiser class, says a Washington corresjiondent. The Japanese government already has several vessels of this type.the Charleston, lu fact, being a duplicate of the Japanese cruiser Nani Ka Wan. which was constructed about a year before its American prototype. It would appear from rejwrts which reach lie re from Tokio that Japan, like the United States, does Uot tlnd these vessels as satisfactory for all-round service as those of the gunboat class, which are equally well adapted for carrying the flag and for the performance of iwliee duty. But neither would be especially effective in time of war. It is likely, therefore, that the new vessels of the Japanese navy will be more distinctively of the armored cruiser and battleship type. In noting the retirement from the army of Major George E. Robinson, the Washington papers recall the fact that lie saved the life of Secretary Seward on the night Lincoln was assassinated. Major Robinson was an enlisted man in the Army during the war. He was soon afterward transferred to the hospital corps, with station at Washington City. When Seward was thrown from his carriage and so badly injured that he required the services of a professional nurse, Robinson was assigned to look after him. On the night when Booth shot the President and Payne made an attack upon Seward. Robinson was in the secretary's room. The assassin, on entering, was seized by Robinson, .but he succeeded In attacking and wounding the secretary. But for Robinson's presence Mr. Seward might have been killed. A gold medal was given to Robinson by Congress for his servlet's, and when Hayes came to the White House he was made a major and jsiy master In the Army. It is noteworthy that, though in each of the American crematories more men than women have been cremated, the movement abroad was practically begun by women, Lady Dllke, of England, mid n German woman having been cremated at Dresden. When efforts were made In the years 1873-74 on the Continent of Europe, In England and In the United States, in favor of the cremation of the dead, Lady Rose Mary Crawshay was one of Its prominent advocates. A number of well-known women In this country have expressed themselves decidedly in favor of cremation. Among them are Olive Thorne Miller, Mrs. Lippincott, Mrs. J. O. Croly, Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Mrs. Alice 1). Le Piongeon, the late Kate Field, Rose Elizabeth Cleveland and Edith Thomas. At n public meeting Mrs. Bullington Booth referred to the time when her body should be carried to the crematory. The total number of cremations in the United States from 1870, when the first crematory was established, to the close of 1805, was reported to be 4,047. Nearly 1,000 persons wort' cremated In the last year in twenty-one crematories. In the crematory at Fresh Pond, N. Y., eighty-five boys and sixtyalx girls were incinerated. The number of men cremated In New York is more than double the number of women.

Mr. George G. Brown has been the faithful efficient secretary of the Brooklyn Board of Education for neveral years. Ho satisfactory have his services been that recently the Committee on Finance agreed to recommend an Increase of SI,OOO a year in bis salary. To the surprise of the public at large, if not of that of his friends, Mr. Brown has put a veto on this proposal, saying that “In view of the problems In financial and monetary matters with which the city Is confronted, this is not the most suitable time for such action." This Is said to be the first time a Brooklyn official ever refused a proffered increase in salary. The Incident is rare enough, at nil events, in municipal history to warrant more than an Incidental notice. It is ne<*diess to say that Mr. Brown’s suggestion has been heeded and the committee's recommendation “withheld for the present.” A special commission has declared impracticable the construction of a ship canal between the Atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean, across the territory of France. The scheme was originally suggested as a means of evading Gibraltar for the transit ofwar vessels to and from the Bay of Biscay and 'Toulon. The London correspondent of The* Manchester Courier publishes a remarkable acount of a new illuminant, which, if all that is said of it is true, will push both gas and electric light very liard. For its production no machinery is required save that contained In a portable lamp neither larger nor heavier than is used with colza oil or paraffin. This lamp, ft is declared, generates its own gas. The substance employed is nt present a secret, jealously guarded by some Inventive Italians. The cost Is declared to be at most one-fifth of that of ordinary gas, and the resultant light is nearly as bright as the electric light and much whiter. The apparatus can be carried about as easily as a candlestick and seems both clean and odorless. In the 22,000 electoral colleges of Mexico the vote of last month for the re-election of Porflrio Diaz to the Presidency was unanimous. Never in any previous Presidential election in Mexico. or, perhaps, In any other republic, was there a result so remarkable. Pennsylvania papers tell of a man who Is swindling farmers by means of a double-end fountain pen, one end of which he uses in drawing up contracts for harvesting machinery, and the other he presents for the farmers to use in putting their signatures to the documents. The ink of the contract fades, and a promissory note is written in over the signature. A New York Surrogate has decided that George Gould earned the $5,000,0000 left him by his late father Jay Gould. The State Controller tried to show that the money was subject to the collateral inheritance tax as a gift, but the Surrogate says that the younger Gould earned it by his services to his father for twelve years be-

fore Jay Gould died. This is at the rate of about $417,000 a year. Among the various quiet but useful works which Gerald Balfour is carrying out for the benefit of Ireland, the encouragement of horse breeding occupies by no means the least place If is understood that the government bl contemplating the issue of a royal commission to inquire into the whole subject and that the chairman will probably be the Earl of Dunraven. According to the records for 1800 the amount of sugar cane produced by the leading countries of the world was: Cuba. 530,000 tons; Java. 320.000 tons; Jamaica, 210.000 tons; India. 220.000 tons; Brazil. 230,000 tons; Manilla, 180.000 tons; Mauritius, 120,000 tons; Guiana. 120.000 tons; China, 100.000 tons; Guadeloupe. 100.000 tons; United States. 100.000 tons; Porto Rico, 80.000 tons, and Honolulu. 00.000 tons. A political camimign has a multitude of side effects, besides important civic consequences. Yet few probably think of the influence of a campaign upou literature. Every political contest creates or particularly applies various expressions which thereafter are practically ruined for soberer use. Adverting to tills point, the Bookman culls attention to the astonishing part played In every campaign by )H>liti<al "gags" which stand to nine votes out of ten in the place of any tiual and detlnite opinions upon great questions of national policy. Sometimes these terse expreaaloni* embody iu a compact form a distinct principle, but often they are mere senseless flings nt a candidate which prove nothing but the vacuity of the minds that utter them. In every campaign "some phrase or adjective or epithet is worked to death by campaign orators and afterward by the newspapers. It Is. in the first place, generally uttered in a serious way. because It is supposed to be pathetic or striking or ('specially vivid; but after it has been used by ten thousand stump speakers and twenty thousand editors, It Is reduced to the level of a ludicrous bit of political slang." The Bookman contends that this sort of thing has Its serious side, for indiscriminate use of these current political phrases results in the vulgarizing of "some of the finest and most expressive words In the language, thanks to the poverty of the reporter's vocabulary." There are words that must be allowed to lie fallow for perhaps years after a Presidential election, because of the ' over-telling which they received In the course of the campaign. What all the people have once laughed at can not for a long time Is* profitably used again In a serious relation.